UIHistories Project: A History of the University of Illinois by Kalev Leetaru
N A V I G A T I O N D I G I T A L L I B R A R Y
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Repository: UIHistories Project: Book - History of the University (Nevins) [PAGE 371]

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UNIVERSITY PROGRESSIYENESS

349

in the Board of Trustees threatened the place of President James, and he left the question of his going or staying to the faculty vote which unanimously sustained him, public impatience with any attempt by the Trustees to interfere on political grounds with the University was forcibly expressed. " I f we know the conditions of our own well-being,'' said the Chicago Tribune, "if we understand and honor the principles and ideals of our country, we shall guard jealously the freedom of our schools, and we shall punish swiftly and certainly any man or interest which attacks that freedom." Gov. Dunne wrote the President that "politics must not enter into consideration of the University, and whatever may be our affiliation with political parties, they should be forgotten in the execution of our business as Trustees of the University. ,, Only meddling by the University in politics could invite the meddling of politics in the University, and the former everyone at the institution is eager to avoid—President James in 1916 offering as one reason for declining to run for the Governorship his belief that no one should regard the post he occupied as a stepping stone to State preferment. That the University has been proud of large numbers, that it has even had faculty members who have confounded bigness and greatness, cannot be denied. | | In extenuation it can be pleaded that it once had to appeal for legislative support on the ground of its size. Certainly it had never exaggerated its numbers even for this purpose, after the fashion of the Kansas farmer who advertised thirty-two head of stock, which on examination were found to consist of two cows, two horses, and twenty-eight hens. Moreover, it has tried to appeal to the imagination of the State, and its faith in the future has been of the sort that justifies itself. When